The article, “The 10 Most Radioactive Places on Earth”, brings to the forefront the threat that nuclear radiation and toxic waste has in destroying lands and waters across the globe. The first detonation of the “Fat Man” atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima by the US set the world in motion for nuclear disasters. The horrible truth was realizing that there was a weapon capable of wiping out whole cities and people off of the earth. What was left in its wake was seared land, contaminated waters, death and sickness for people and the children of Japan. The bomb has never been used since then but our Cold War era weapon’s production made from plutonium, has left us with toxic waste dumps of radioactive waste, many already contaminating our water supply, threatening cities, people, wildlife and the earth itself. This is not about missile attacks and nuclear bomb threats from other countries during the Cold War era anymore, but the danger of contaminated nuclear sites left in its wake, those in our own backyard and backyards across the entire earth.
The 10 listed are some of the worst sites of toxic and
radioactive waste in the world:
10. Hanford, USA, located in Washington is
what is left from the US atomic bomb project that manufactured plutonium for
the first nuclear bomb and “Fat Man” dropped on Nagasaki. The site supplied
60,000 nuclear weapons during the Cold War era. It is now decommissioned,
however it is the most contaminated site in the US.
9. The Mediterranean is suspected of being a dumping ground for
ships loaded with toxic and radioactive waste. It is believed that the Italian
Mafia is charging for the illegal activity and pocketing the profits. An
Italian NGO believes there may have been 40 shiploads of this hazardous waste
that have disappeared into the Mediterranean since 1994. If the barrels of this
waste rust and break open, an environmental disaster will ensue in the sea.
8. The Somalian Coast had barrels of toxic and nuclear waste wash
up on its shores during the 2004 tsunami. It is believed to have been dumped
there by the illegal activity of the Italian Mafia back in the 1990’s. Not only
did the barrels contain toxic nuclear material but also radioactive hospital
waste.
7. The industrial complex of Mayak, Russia, in 1957, was the site of one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents. Releasing an explosion of up to 100 tons of radioactive waste, the massive area is now contaminated. It was finally exposed in the 1990’s that the plant had been dumping waste into Lake Karachay, leading to the contamination of the water supply.
6. Sellafield, UK was a plutonium production facility for
nuclear bombs and is now located in commercial territory. The facility has had
100’s of accidents and releases, on a daily basis, 800 million liters of contaminated
waste into the Irish Sea and considered the most radioactive sea in the world.
5. Siberian Chemical
Combine is another contaminated site in Russia and contains 40 years of nuclear waste. Liquid waste is stores in uncovered pools, have poorly maintained containers and underground storage that has the potential to leak into the groundwater. Accidents have led to plutonium going missing and some explosions have spread radiation.
4. The site in Polygon,
Kazakhstan is where the
Soviet Union tested its nuclear weapons for its atomic bomb projects of the
Cold War Era. The site is a record holder for the area with the largest
concentration of nuclear explosions in the world. The site closed in 1991 but
the impact of radiation exposure is unknown.
3. Mailuu-Suu, Kyrgyzstan is listed as one of the top ten polluted
sites on Earth by the 2006 Blacksmith Institutes report. The contamination
comes from the mining for the materials needed in the processes they entail.
The site has 36 dumps of uranium waste, an area prone to earthquakes that could
release the toxic material into rivers and contaminating the water by hundreds
of thousands of people.
2. Chernobyl, Ukraine is well known as one of the worst nuclear
accidents and is still heavily contaminated.
The disastrous accident caused over 6 million people to be exposed to radiation and the deaths eventually are estimated to be from 4,000 to 93,000 people. The
accident released 100 times more radiation than the Nagasaki and Hiroshima
bombs.
1. The 2011 earthquake and
tsunami in Fukushima, Japan was the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. The
incident caused meltdown of three of the six reactors, leaking radiation into
the land and has been detected 200 miles offshore from the Fukushima plant.
It’ll take public consciousness, recognizing that there is a
global problem due to nuclear pollution, before the focus will turn to cleaning
up the mess we’ve all made in the quest for domination in the world. The
ramifications are tremendous and will loom over us for generations. The danger
is real. We must turn away from spending money on war and spend those billions and
needed trillion of dollars on cleanup efforts across the entire Earth.
